Reducing the need for expensive colonoscopies
Posted: - 28th October 2019
We have successfully rolled out the Faecal Calprotectin pathway to 17 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) across Yorkshire and the Humber.
The pathway has been implemented across the whole of the Humber Coast and Vale Health and Care Partnership – this is a first for the region and for the country.
By preventing unnecessary, uncomfortable, and expensive colonoscopies and enabling the patient’s condition to be managed in primary care, CCGs using the pathway will see savings of approximately £220,000 per annum. This cost saving has been validated through an evaluation commissioned by us last year from the York Health Economics Consortium (YHEC).
The pathway is at the centre of the national algorithm shared by NHS England. It is endorsed by NICE and Crohn’s Colitis UK and is on the Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) toolkit hosted by the Royal College of General Practitioners.
The Faecal Calprotectin pathway helps GPs to make the difficult distinction between Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. As many as 19 out of 20 patients presenting symptoms of these conditions are unnecessarily referred to secondary care while, for other patients, diagnosis can be delayed.
We have led the implementation of the Faecal Calprotectin pathway since 2015 in partnership with York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and we are now spearheading the roll-out of the pathway on behalf of the AHSN Network to make the best use of NHS resources and deliver a better patient experience.
For more information please contact us
Supporting Material
Evaluation of the Cost Utility of the York Faecal Calprotectin Care Pathway
Evaluation of the clinical and cost effectiveness of the York Faecal Calprotectin Care Pathway
The patients will get seen and treated in primary care, they will avoid a referral up to the hospital, they will potentially avoid unnecessary investigations in secondary care, basically the right patient will go to the right place for the right reasons
